Fostering an organisational mindset shift to experience-driven business is a key task marketers must own, says Adobe VP marketing for APAC, Alvaro Del Pozo. As nominations for the 2019 CMO50 list open, we catch up with the marketing chief to find out how he’s ensuring his approach to modern marketing is a winning one.
As Adobe’s CEO, Shantanu Narayen puts, it, companies today must be “maniacally focused on customer experience” to win. What are some things you’ve done to enhance your CX credentials as a team?
Alvaro del Pozo: For Adobe, experience is our business. Today’s rapidly changing digital landscape means marketers too must make a significant shift. We understand, better than most, that marketing is vital to how consumers experience a brand.
Our mindset as marketers is as experience makers and enablers of digital transformation. We champion Adobe’s bold mission to enable every company to become experience-driven businesses through the right technology, talent and processes.
The same experience-driven approach extends to support of our customers. Adobe Experience League, for example, is unlike any other guided learning program in APAC; uniquely tailored to each customers’ individual needs, and a community of peers connected through their experience and expertise.
Can you share an example of data-driven decision making to drive marketing activity this year?
Measuring progress, success, driving efficiency and having the ability to scale the process – at speed – are foundational elements of a digital business and imperative in today’s era of experience. Adobe continues to lead the Customer Experience Management (CXM) category because we know it’s an imperative for brands to deliver the right experiences, to the right people, at the right time.
This customer-centric philosophy was at the forefront in our world-class Adobe Symposium Sydney. Our team implemented an omni-channel, ABM approach to deliver highly-personalised communications to prospective attendees. During the event, we leveraged integrated technology to follow and map the onsite customer journey, with this data then pulled back into our CRM to personalise post-event messaging based on preferences. The end-to-end customer approach has also enabled our teams with data-driven insights to deliver even better Adobe experiences.
The latest Adobe Digital Trends Report highlights this trend, with enterprise organisations ranking data-driven marketing that focuses on the individual as the single most exciting opportunity in 2019.
CMOs continue to feel rising pressure from boards and CEOs to prove the value of marketing. What lessons can you share on successfully proving the CMO’s worth?
Marketing is a vital function within any organisation, especially those undergoing end-to-end business transformation requiring significant technology change. CMOs must be prepared to play an integral role and spearhead innovation, accelerating their companies’ transformation into an experience-led business.
Nothing can stand in the way of demonstrable business impact and that will always be your biggest asset in the long-run. Nothing can stand in the way of demonstrable business impact and that will always be your biggest asset in the long run.
How at Adobe do you measure marketing’s bottom-line impact?
We focus on results, non-stop, and use Adobe products every day to drive our business; from Web analytics, to testing and campaign management.
Implementing an account-based experiences approach within our APAC organisation required a mindset shift. Now, functional teams are enabled with better pipeline data, aligned around key business objectives and collaborating on the ways we can achieve our targets. From a marketing standpoint, our tactics and programs are framed by the business outcomes we’re seeking to drive as an organisation.
AI is increasingly becoming a core capability to drive marketing innovation and automation. What exciting opportunities have you identified for using AI so far?
Innovations in AI, immersive media and experience design are fundamentally transforming how we interact with the world around us, presenting huge opportunities for marketers.
Looking ahead, AI will power customer journey intelligence across the marketing lifecycle; from deeper individual customer insights, and measuring the true incremental impact of each marketing touchpoint, to optimising media mix modelling driving greater budget efficiency. Ways we’re already using Adobe Sensei across B2C and B2B include media mix modelling to look at and optimise our overall spend; linking customer journeys to identify successful conversion paths; and lead scoring to help sales teams prioritise pipeline.
Delivering experiences that feel more natural and relevant to consumers is at the core of CX management. Data is at the centre of this, and only when the data is connected can real value be extracted. For CMOs, this means also looking at technology from a creativity and design perspective, not just an efficiency standpoint.
Cross-functional collaboration in delivering seamless end-to-end customer experience. How are you seeing collaborative ways of working coming to life at Adobe?
When customer experience is done right, it spans the entire organisation and informs every phase of the customer journey. Marketing plays an integral role and have increasing responsibility in bringing together teams and technologies that enable CX management. By bringing together people with a diversity of experience and specialised skills – to brainstorm, communicate, challenge ideas and align on desired outcomes – creativity flourishes and the bottom-line benefits.
As CMOs, it’s our role to understand the science behind collaboration and how to remove roadblocks that may get in the way of productivity.
How do you ensure creativity flourishes in the midst of such data and technologically-led transformation?
With all the data and technology now available to marketers, it’s crucial they remember creativity still plays a critical role. Creating amazing content that is personal and emotive is key to delivering incredible customer experiences.
At Adobe, creativity is in our DNA; it’s part of our history and key to our continued success. We understand creativity needs to be nurtured, inspired and valued. Being innovative is one of our core values and we strive to connect new ideas, knowing these ideas come from everywhere in the company.
Adobe is changing the world though digital experiences. We help our customers develop and deliver high-impact experiences that differentiate brands, build loyalty, and drive revenue across every screen, including smartphones, computers, tablets and TVs. Adobe content solutions are used daily by millions of companies worldwide—from publishers and broadcasters, to enterprises, marketing agencies and household-name brands. Building on our established design leadership, we enable customers not only to make great content, but to manage, measure and monetise it for maximum impact. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.
In the third and final episode of our 3-part CMO50 video series exploring modern marketing and why it’s become a matter of trust, we’re delighted to be joined by Telstra’s former CMO and now digital services and sales executive, Jeremy Nicholas, and Adobe VP Marketing Asia-Pacific and Japan, Duncan Egan.
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